The AXA Women’s Super League in Switzerland hopes to grow after the Women’s EUROs this summer. But at the moment, the league is still facing some major problems. How to increase investment for women’s football in Switzerland and ensure the tournament has a lasting impact?

The countdown is on. In July 2025, Switzerland will host the UEFA Women’s EUROs, and the ambitions for this project could not be higher. The tournament aims to be the first-ever sold-out Women’s EUROs, to welcome fans from all over the world, to deliver the best football there is – and to transform Swiss women’s football as a whole. No mean feat for a five-week tournament.

The EUROs 2022 in England showed how a few weeks of euphoria can change everything and drive investment. But Switzerland is not England. “In England, there was already a strong foundation with the FA WSL and high club engagement,” says Richard Feuz, former CEO of top team Servette Chênois and current general manager of Chicago Stars FC, speaking to The Rise of Women’s Football.

Swiss League is still far from being professional

Women’s football in Switzerland is currently facing some serious challenges. The ten-team league includes big clubs like Young Boys Bern and FC Basel, but equally the likes of FC Rapperswil-Jona and Thun Berner-Oberland. These are clubs that do everything they can, but don’t have the infrastructure to compete at the highest level. The league is still a long way from being professional. Only about twenty players can make a living from football alone. More than half of the players are still amateurs, earning less than 500 Swiss francs a month. As a result, the great talents leave the country as soon as they can. Only five Swiss national team players still play in their domestic league. 

This is a vicious circle familiar to many women’s football leagues. Without star players, there is less visibility and media attention, which in turn is needed to secure investment and sponsorship, which is needed to improve infrastructure and salaries, which in turn provides better prospects for good players. How can this cycle be broken?

“The league is growing, but too slowly”

The first important step is for clubs to commit to investing not just once, but over time. Young Boys Bern and FC St. Gallen have already made their large stadiums the permanent home of their women’s teams. So far, however, it remains a difficult experiment: Attendance averages just 424 fans, far less than in Germany or England. This is perhaps not too surprising given the size of Switzerland. But in a stadium like Bern’s Wankdorf, with a capacity of 31,120, the attendance often looks disappointing on the TV screen. The league is struggling with a paradox. While the national team is popular and broke its own attendance record twice last year (now at 17,000), the impact on the league has been marginal.

Of course, there has been growth in recent years. Since 2020, the insurance company AXA has been the title sponsor of the league, leading to many positive developments. But the league is still looking for more. “We currently have room for one more partner and there is still potential in marketing that has not yet been exhausted,” the league said in a statement to TROWF. How can the league find more partners? Richard Feuz explains his approach at Servette. “We have structured a credible project that proves that investing in the club makes sense from a sporting, economic and social point of view”, he says. 

Women’s football isn’t just charity, it’s a real business opportunity. But Feuz believes there’s still a long way to go: “The league is growing, but too slowly. It still lacks a clear long-term vision and an ambitious development strategy,” he says. Professionalization, investment and building strong club identities should now be at the top of the league’s priority list. Switzerland can also learn from the NWSL, says Feuz from across the pond. But there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to growing the women’s game. “The goal is not to copy, but to adapt what works to the Swiss context, especially when it comes to storytelling and content production,” says Feuz.

Euros 2025: The perfect opportunity for growth

Building a strong narrative, connecting with fans and creating a strong identity will be essential for the league’s future. These things take time. But with the EUROs just around the corner, it’s clear that change in women’s football in Switzerland can no longer wait. The best time to act was yesterday, the second best is today. Without sufficient investment, the effect of successful tournaments can fade quickly, as happened in Germany after the 2011 World Cup.

The league is aware of this. “We are currently working on concepts to transfer the momentum from the European Championship to the league in a profitable way,” says a spokesperson. With a special program, the SFV Legacy, the media visibility and the number of spectators are to be increased on the basis of the EUROs, new fans are to become permanent fans. But the league is also looking to make more fundamental changes. “We are creating a new youth label and a license for AWSL clubs to ensure higher standards.”

In an interview with The Rise of Women’s Football, Swiss legend Lara Dickenmann also called for such a licensing system. She also stressed the need for structural changes, as women’s football is currently represented on the board of the Swiss Football Association by a representative of the men’s amateur game, even though the two groups have different concerns. There is room for improvement at all levels, as Richard Feuz says. “We need to turn any momentum from the EUROs into concrete actions: investment in clubs, a better structured league and, most importantly a clear strategy to retain the audience drawn to the event. But after a successful event with enthusiastic fans and sponsors, anything is possible.